I nod.
“Then we’ll take it one thing at a time. What’s bugging you the most right now?”
I think hard for a moment and open my mouth to say it’s a combination of everything, maybe the Dominic situation a little bit more than others, but my mouth has other plans: “I didn’t like the way Ty’s teacher looked at you,” I growl, wincing as I do so. “He touched you like he owned you, and that pissed me the hell off.”
Damn right, it snaps. Who the fuck did he think he was? I don’t know why you didn’t break his fingers off. Oh, wait, you tried. Maybe it’s time to hit the gym again, huh?
Shut up.
Otter sighs. “Been thinking about that, huh? I wondered why you hadn’t brought it up yet.”
“Maybe I was waiting for you to do it.”
He tugs on my hair a bit harder. “I thought we were going to get better at this whole ‘talking to each other’ thing.”
“Talking about it now, right?”
He gives me that one, but adds the caveat: “Well, yes, but only after you’ve probably stewed on it and made it worse in your head, Bear. You forget you can’t bullshit me. I know you.”
And he does, but whatever. That’s not the point. “Did you love him?” I ask him, not wanting an answer, because if he says yes, that means he loved him and Jonah before he ever got to me, even if he says he loved me then, as well, maybe above all the rest. I don’t like to share what’s mine with anyone. If he says that he loved them while loving me, then what’s to say he couldn’t love someone else in the future while still loving me? It’s bullshit and I know it, but it’s still there, growing like a burnt tree in my mind, taking root, the tendrils lodging themselves in my brain. It’s bullshit.
Right?
Otter pulls away, and I feel cold arc up my spine like frozen fire. But then he drags me over and sets me down onto his pillow, rolling on top of me and covering me with his entire body, making it impossible to move, making it impossible for any earthquakes to rip through me. I struggle briefly, but his eyes are on mine, that gold-green bright in the dark, and I try to shield him from whatever he can see there in me, what I’m thinking, but it does no good. I go to turn my head, but he puts his forearms on either side of me, pressed up against my ears, and I can’t move. It feels like I can’t even breathe, even though air is flowing in and out of my lungs and mouth. I can’t look away now, even if I wanted to.
“I told you that it’s always been you,” he says, searching my eyes.
“But it’s been others too,” I mutter.
“And you had Anna.”
Dammit. “It’s not the same, Otter. I’m not going to lose you to some chick.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Who says you’re going to lose me at all?” he asks as he shakes me a little bit
“Have you seen the guys you’ve been with?” I grumble. “First Jonah comes in looking all dark and mysterious”—and like an asshole—“and then David Fucking Trent just happened to step out of GQ on his way to work out more to make sure his stupid perfect ass stays perfect?”
He’s almost amused at this, but then he scowls. “Why were you staring at his ass?”
“It was either that or stare at the two of you while you held hands!”
“We weren’t holding hands, idjit. I shook his hand. It’s the polite thing to do. If you’d paid attention, you would have seen that. But why are you getting mad at me? You were the one checking him out. If anyone here has the right to be mad, it should be me. After all, my boyfriend is apparently hot for his brother’s new teacher.”
“I-I wasn’t! I was just—” I sputter at him. “He was there, and you were all like ‘Oh, David, let me hold you’, and I was all like, ‘who’s this asshole?’ Even the Kid noticed!”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh yes, because the Kid isn’t hyperaware of every
little thing just like his big brother at all.”
“You haven’t answered the question.”
He sighs. “No, Bear. I didn’t love him. Not in the way that you’re thinking. It was the same with Jonah. I can’t even compare the two to you because it wouldn’t be fair to them.” He leans down and kisses the tip of my nose. “Bear, I don’t want anyone else. I won’t. I don’t know how else I can explain that to you. If you need me to tell you every day, I will. If you need me to make sure you know even more than I already do, I can. But….” He stops as he bites his bottom lip, and something crosses his eyes then, almost like a troubled shadow. I’ve seen that look before. I hate that look. That look says that I’ve done something wrong or that Otter is upset or freaked out by something.
“But what?” I ask him.
He drops his forehead onto mine, his eyes never leaving my own. “What about you, Bear?”
“What about me?”